


Essential

by brink



Category: Jessica Jones (TV)
Genre: Dark, F/M, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-01
Updated: 2016-01-01
Packaged: 2018-05-10 22:16:00
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,766
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5602945
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/brink/pseuds/brink
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jessica knows more about Kilgrave than anyone else. And what she knows, he will not take well.<br/>[Heed the tags!]</p>
            </blockquote>





	Essential

**Author's Note:**

> This story is from Jessica's POV while under Kilgrave's control.
> 
> You'll find no fluff here, though nothing is very graphic either. Kilgrave is a narcissistic monster, and whatever he feels for Jessica comes from a place of intense selfishness and disregard for her. He is, in my opinion (and in my stories), completely irredeemable.

During the time she spends as Kilgrave's pet, Jessica learns more about the man than she can stomach. Literally. It makes her queasy to think she may well be the person on earth who knows him best. She never wanted to, but like so much else, the decision has been taken out of her hands.

It takes her a while to realise, but she comes to understand that there is one essential truth about Kilgrave that defines him entirely. Everything else is circumstantial in comparison. She hopes to god he won't ever know to ask her for her secret, because Jessica knows in her marrow he won't take it well. Kilgrave may be able to shape all the world to his will, but simple truths don't bend for anyone.

She safeguards her thoughts as well as she can. But it doesn't last.

One night, they are seated in a restaurant, when a waiter brings the very specific wine Kilgrave had requested. Only he brings it long after Kilgrave and Jessica have finished their meal.

The man is sweaty and dirty like he has been running for hours - which probably is the case - and he is trembling with terror. His hands shake so badly he almost can't keep a grip on the no doubt very expensive bottle of red he has procured for them.

Kilgrave is pissed.

"Well, this is just bloody perfect, isn't it? Long since finished with the meal, and now the wine shows up! And all the time we sat here with parched tongues. Jessica is very unhappy!"

 _Well_ , thinks Jessica with a sort of numb resignation that has begun to define most of her existence, _he's not wrong. Just whining._ They had not, in fact, sat with "parched tongues", but had been served a substitute from the restaurant's own wine cellar while they waited for the particular one Kilgrave had really wanted. But Kilgrave considers it a grave insult to be denied anything, for any reason.

"I'm so sorry," whimpers the waiter. He's a big, handsome guy with a bald head, but in this moment he has shrunken so far into himself he looks a little like a child. "We didn't have the wine you wanted. I had to fetch it -"

"I know," snarls Kilgrave, "You told me already, that's why I bloody well sent you off to get it someplace else! But I don't recall telling you to spend the whole damn evening doing this _one - simple - task_!"

Jessica feels herself freeze in place as her blood runs cold and hot in turns. Kilgrave is going to hurt this man. Maybe not just him.

"I couldn't find it," sobs the wretched figure, his knees almost giving out from under him. "I did everything I could, I called every number -"

"Enough!"

Kilgrave hurls the word out, and everyone in the room stills. "The incompetence I'm forced to put up with around here!" he raves, tossing his napkin. "Now you are going to -"

Jessica knows in general how that sentence will end, and she has no interest in specifics. "Darling!" she says and puts a hand on Kilgrave's, which is resting on the table ready to propel him to his feet, as he seems to want to. Jessica knows no rational argument will reach him, so she has to go for a lie he will want to believe instead. "We don't need wine to have a lovely evening. Let's go back to the hotel and make up for our losses."

It's a marvel she can spew these words without also spewing her meal in the process. But she had Kilgrave's attention at _darling_ , and now she has his interest as well.

He is looking at her with a mixture of emotions on his face. Some of him is obviously weighing her words and the sincerity behind them, and if he is not fully delusional he will know she is trying to manipulate him at least somewhat. But another part of him is hungry for her, and that makes her offer tempting regardless of her motives. She sees the want in the dark glint in his eyes, and she wants to run, wants to kill him, wants to kill herself, or at the very least just look away. But she does none of these things. She smiles. _Look at this, asshole_ , Jessica thinks, because her thoughts are all that are free. _This is what you want to believe, isn't it? I'm happy, I love you, we are meant to be. Forget the other poor bastards. Let them go. Let them be._

"My, Jessica," murmurs Kilgrave. "Who knew you could be so agreeable? And all on your own initiative."

"Let's get out of here," Jessica offers in a voice that tries to sound alluring.

That settles it.

Later, after Jessica has been forced to make good on the promise hidden behind her words, they lie in bed together naked and look at the stars through the floor-to-ceiling windows. Jessica feels empty, like she often does after. And yet... there is a glimmer in there, somewhere, like the ghost of the hero Trish thought she was. _He didn't hurt them. I helped_.

It's not a happy feeling per say - there is too much shame and sorrow and heartbreak and longing connected to any thought that even vaguely concerns Trish - but more like a fleck of relief, fading already. Still. Jessica takes what she can get. Especially as Kilgrave is walking his fingers over her bare shoulder. He is in a gentle mood now. God, it is taxing keeping track of his ups and downs.

"You were wonderful, darling," says Kilgrave and replaces his fingers with his lips.

"I was everything you told me to be," says Jessica.

He stills behind her. Jessica stiffens as well. _Why the fuck did I say that out loud?_

"Well, that's just a little rude, don't you think?" says Kilgrave in a cold voice.

Jessica knows she has fucked up. "I'm sorry," she laments. "I really am, you're right, I shouldn't -"

"Are you?" interrupts Kilgrave, "Sorry? Answer honestly."

And the truth spills from her lips. "I am sorry that I made you angry."

"So you are not sorry for being rude, but sorry I didn't like it, is that it?"

Kilgrave maneuvers them so that the are sitting face to face on the bed. Jessica can't help covering herself with the duvet, as pointless as it is. "Yes."

"I see." There is a beat, then Kilgrave shrugs, a cruel glint in his eyes. "I suppose I shouldn't be surprised a little orphaned wretch hasn't been taught better manners. Maybe they tried, mummy and daddy, before they went and died on you, and it just didn't stick. What do you think?"

_Answer honestly._

"I think you are the one without any fucking manners, because all you are is a spoilt man-child with all the selfrestrain and lack of empathy of a fucking five-year old!"

She is screaming the words by the end of it. Jessica is on her feet, dragging the sheet with her, though she doesn't remember moving in the first place. There is no going back now. "You are spoiled!" she yells, "And that's how you act! You dress like an adult and you fuck like an adult, but you never got past childhood at all - and you don't even know it!"

Kilgrave is standing now as well.

"If there's a child here, it's damn well you!" he snarls, eyes wild. "Throwing tantrums like that when all I bloody well try to do is make sure you get all the best things!"

"Everything you do is for yourself!" screams Jessica. She has tumbled off the edge, and there's nowhere to go but down, so she may as well get there faster. "Nothing is for anyone else, especially not for me! You may have superpowers but you are no different than a schoolyard bully who hurts anyone he wants to because he has the bigger stick, and nobody can do anything about it! You think you are so fucking sophisticated with your damn expensive wines and your shitty purple suits, but it's all just a lousy front, and I see right through you. You are a child, you never grew up, and that's how I treat you, Kilgrave, like a spoiled child with all the power in the world over me, because that's what you are, a little boy who never got told 'no' and is fucked up because of it. It's all and everything that you are, and you can never run from that, no matter how many lies you make me tell you!"

"Shut your mouth," says Kilgrave.

He says it without a lot of emotion. But his face looks stricken, a little slack. A silence fills the space between them, full of tension and emotions. Jessica is spent and exhausted, and she wonders if she is going to die now, and how he will do it.

"Well then," says Kilgrave after a while with deadly calm. "I have to respond to that."

His reply doesn't come in the form of words.

For a while after, Jessica's life becomes much, much, much harder. She is made to jump, to please, to suffer, and to watch others suffer. She is made to say sorry until the word loses all meaning and her tongue feels thick and foreign in her mouth. She is made to stay awake, to be motionless for hours, and throughout it Kilgrave has robbed her of her ability to even beg for him to relent. She may not speak, except to apologise. She smiles for him until her face hurts. And when he wants her to, she thanks him for his kindness, compliments him for his brilliance, begs for his cock. It's weeks before Kilgrave forgives her enough to start letting Jessica be Jessica again. She is never not on a leash, but at least he begins gradually allowing her to voice some of her opinions - if she does it with proper regard for him - and more physical freedom as well, like going to the bathroom without begging for permission. By the end of their "tiff", the worst weeks are a hazy memory of pain for Jessica, repressed into oblivion. She knows she will not survive another outburst.

Despite all of this, she can't quite bring herself to regret what happened. It gives her a queer feeling of righteousness to know that for a moment, Kilgrave was forced to face the truth because of her.

He may have rejected what he saw. But then that's kids for you.


End file.
